This invention relates to a magnetic tape device.
Conventionally, press-fitting action of a head and tape feeding direction changover action have been performed by commonly use a cam driven by a motor. Namely, an operating member for achieving press-fitting action of the head is directly linked to the cam to thereby directly receive the driving force of the cam, and at the same time, a changeover member for achiving tape feeding direction changeover action is operable only when the operating member is at the position to press-fit the head.
Such prior-art mechanism, however, had such drawbacks that the head stops in an insecure position on way of shifting if the power source is interrupted to cause the motor to stop on way of press-fitting action of the head by the cam and that if a user wants to do stop operation, fast-forwarding operation, rewinding operation or eject operation, he has to wait until the action for press-fitting the head is completed because forcible operations often damage the heads. Further, if the action of the operating member is cancelled in the middle of the action of the changeover member, the changeover member is left pendent in an undesired position in the middle of changing action of the changeover means. This makes it impossible to perfectly change the tape feeding direction and also drive the tape even in the former direction after this.